Introduction

Abstract

This study is based on the assumption that close examination of the imagery to which a writer has recourse can provide a peculiarly revealing insight into the mind that has conceived those images. The way in which a mind chooses to express itself is indicative of its habitual internal processes, and, until we understand something of these processes, we shall find it difficult to account for the direction that that mind sometimes elects to take, or to judge of its underlying ease or unease. By dissecting some of the images with which Boswell attempts in his journals to shape his experience, I hope to be able to make some helpful suggestions about his life-long mental unease of melancholy, and about his attitude towards the written word both as private record and as published statement.